Birthright (novel)

Birthright
Adapted into:	Birthright
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Ace, Benny
Main enemy:	the Charrl, Jared Khan
Main setting:	London, 1909 Antýkhon, 22,000
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Nigel Robinson
Release details
Release number:	17
Release date:	19 August 1993
Format:	Paperback Book; 40 Chapters, 216 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20393-3
Virgin New Adventures
← Previous	Shadowmind
Next →	Iceberg
DWM's "New Adventures order"
← Previous	Shadowmind
Next →	Iceberg

You may wish to consult Birthright (disambiguation) for other, similarly-named pages.

Birthright is the seventeenth novel in the Virgin New Adventures series. It was written by Nigel Robinson, published in 1993, and featured the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Benny.

Publisher's summary

"I feel like a pawn in a blasted chess game, Ace." "I know what you mean. Trouble is, they keep changing the chess-players."

The TARDIS has died. Stranded in early twentieth-century London, Bernice can only stand and watch as it slowly disintegrates.

In the East End a series of grisly murders has been committed. Is this the work of the ghostly Springheel Jack or, as Bernice suspects something even more sinister?

In a tiny shop in Bloomsbury, the master of a grand order of sorcerers is nearing the end of a seven-hundred year quest for a fabled magic wand.

And on a barren world in the far-distant future the Queen of a dying race pleads for the help of an old hermit named Muldwych, while Ace leads a group of guerrillas in a desperate struggle against their alien oppressors.

These events are related. Perhaps the Doctor knows how. But the Doctor has gone away.

Chapter Titles

• Prologue: The planet Antykhon, in the year 2,959 of the Great Migration
• Interlude: Ercildoune, Scotland, AD 1270

Part One: BENNY - The planet Earth, AD 1289 - AD 1909

• Chapter 1 - London, 2.30 a.m., Wednesday 3 February AD 1909
• Chapter 2 - London, 7.15 a.m., Thursday 15 April 1909
• Interlude: The terrace of the House of Commons, London, 7.35 a.m., Thursday 15 April 1909
• Chapter 3 - 39 Dean Street, Soho, London, 2.30 p.m., Thursday 15 April AD 1909
• Interlude: Khan-balik (modern-day Beijing), Cathay, AD 1289
• Chapter 4 - Spitalfields, London, 10.45 p.m., Thursday 15 April AD 1909
• Chapter 5 - Spitalfields, London, 00.24 a.m., Friday 16 April AD 1909
• Interlude: Windsor Castle, England, February, AD 1603
• Chapter 6 - Coutts Bank, 440 Strand, London, 1.30 p.m., Friday 16 April AD 1909
• Chapter 7 - Holloway Prison, London, 6.30 a.m., Sunday 18 April AD 1909
• Chapter 8 - Golders Green Crematorium, North London, 10.30 a.m., Tuesday 20 April AD 1909
• Chapter 9 - The Ten Bells Pub, Spitalfields, 10.45 p.m., Wednesday 21 April AD 1909
• Interlude: Culloden, AD 1746
• Chapter 10 - Bloomsbury, London, 10.55 p.m., Thursday 22 April AD 1909
• Chapter 11 - Bloomsbury, London, 11.40 p.m., Thursday 22 April AD 1909
• Chapter 12 - Schmidt's Wine House, 48 Dean Street, Soho, London, 2.30 p.m., Friday 23 April AD 1909

Part Two: ACE - The planet Antykhon in the year 2497 of the Great Migration

• Chapter 13
• Interlude: The Planet Antykhon, two months earlier
• Chapter 14
• Interlude
• Chapter 15
• Chapter 16
• Chapter 17
• chapter 18
• Chapter 19 - Hanbury Street, London, 11.15 a.m., Friday 23 April AD 1909

Part Three: BENNY AND ACE - London, Friday 23 April 1909

• Chapter 20 - 39 Dean Street, 2.45 p.m.
• Interlude: 31 ½ Museum Street, Bloomsbury, 3.45 p.m.
• Chapter 21
• Chapter 22

Part Four: THE TARDIS

• Chapter 23
• Chapter 24
• Chapter 25
• Chapter 26
• Chapter 27
• Chapter 28 - The East End, London, 7.30 a.m., Saturday 24 April AD 1909
• Chapter 29
• First Epilogue: Earth, January AD 1910
• Second Epilogue: The planet Antykhon

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Ace
• Bernice Summerfield
• The Charrl
• Queen Ch'tizz
• Mikhail Vladamir Popov
• Jared Khan
• Margaret Waterfield
• Muldwych

References

Crime

• Springheel Jack is similar to Jack the Ripper, except Springheel is a Charrl who has emerged through a time portal.

Cults

• The Brotherhood of the New Dawn believes man has become decadent and evil.

Diseases and illnesses

• Bernice contracts the flu.

Individuals

• Jared Khan was born seven hundred years ago.
• Margaret Waterfield is Edward Waterfield's sister and Victoria Waterfield's paternal aunt. She is murdered by Kahn's thugs.
• Muldwych is most likely the Merlin incarnation of the Doctor. He has been stranded on Antýkhon for a thousand years.

Languages

• Bernice can't read Cyrillic.

Locations

• Channel Tunnel still survives in 22,000.
• Ace took a trip with the Doctor to Africa "a long time ago". The hive of the Charrl resembles termite mounds which she saw there.

Planets

• Antýkhon turns out to be a future Earth.
• New Skaro is mentioned as the new home planet of the Daleks.

TARDIS

• The Time Vector Generator is an ebony bar that links the exterior and interior dimensions of a TARDIS.

Theories and concepts

• The Charrl created three hundred of the 700 Wonders of the Universe.
• The Migration is the movement of the Charrl from Antýkhon to Earth.

Time travel

• The Great Divide, a temporal portal from approximately 22,000 to 1909.
• Ace gets transported to the year 22,000.
• Bernice gets transported to 1909.

Notes

• This is one of several Virgin New Adventures which were adapted by Big Finish Productions for their first season of Bernice Summerfield audio dramas: Birthright (audio story).
• This novel almost does not feature the Seventh Doctor.
• A prelude to this novel was published in DWM 203.
• The jacket illustration for this book was incorrectly reproduced reversed as a full-colour page in Doctor Who: Timeframe: The Illustrated History. A second edition and paperback corrected this error.

Continuity

• This novel runs parallel with the events of PROSE: Iceberg, with the Doctor being absent for the majority of Birthright. This was the first "Doctor-lite" novel under the New Adventures banner (Target Books previously published two non-Doctor original novels, Harry Sullivan's War and Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma), and in some ways was a rehearsal for the later Doctor-less series of novels featuring Benny that began in 1996.
• The Charrl and Muldwych make an appearance in PROSE: Happy Endings.
• The Charrl are to said to have created the three hundred (of the seven hundred) wonders of the universe, first mentioned in TV: Death to the Daleks.
• The Doctor also encountered a renamed future Earth in TV The Mysterious Planet.
• Mikhail Vladamir Popov returns for a brief cameo in Happy Endings as one of Bernice's wedding guests.
• The Doctor's eagle pedestal speaks to Benny. (TV: The Pirate Planet)

External links

• Prelude to Birthright as published in DWM #203
• Birthright at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Birthright at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Birthright